


When the War Wasn't Won

by Amber_candlelight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28066971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_candlelight/pseuds/Amber_candlelight
Summary: The light side lost the war. The Order Of the Phoenix is dead, but Hermione Granger isn't...or not yet anyway. Awaiting the verdict on her fate from the dark lord himself, Hermione wonders if this is really the end.Slow-burn dramione.I obviously don't own Harry Potter, this is just for fun
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

_The Order of the Phoenix is dead._

Somewhere far away, the world was burning. Curses flew through the air and sparks showered against her skin. Somewhere far away, a war was being lost.

_Submit to the Dark Lord and your life will be spared_

The figures around her continued to fight, not just with wands, but with nails and teeth. 

Dimly, Hermione registered a hand grasping at her calf weakly, and slowly letting go. 

Standing in the midst of death, Hermione thought of the boy who lived. The boy who didn't live. The boy who was dead. She saw green eyes shining and going blank. She heard people screaming. She heard the demands for surrender. And she was tired.

She saw a girl with a familiar faraway smile, permanently frozen in a scream, lying next to her feet. She saw a necklace with radishes dangling from the corpse's neck, and recalled a story about creatures called nargles. How young they were.

Slowly, she felt the ground come into contact with her knees, and she was kneeling. Her hands went to her head, and her head hung in shame.

_Your life will be spared_

The phrase echoed through her skull as someone bound her wrists. What had she come to? she was saving herself, while her friends fought and died.

She heard a thud to her right, and when she turned her head, she saw Ginny kneeling beside her, ginger hair falling in a curtain across her face as sobs wracked her body.

One by one, the light side fell to their knees, following her example. The golden girl, brightest witch of her generation, an example of defeat.

The screams died, and the snow mixed with ash, a black slush coating the ground. 

What was the point of fighting? Harry Potter, The chosen One, was dead.

_______

Ginny's hand was still linked in hers, however many hours later. Hermione couldn't blink properly, her face was so caked with tears, so she just kept her eyelids closed. 

There was an air of suffering, whimpering girls, frightened of what was to come. They didn't know how long it had been, since they'd lost the war. The dark side had thrown them all into the dungeons, and locked the gate. The once proud home of the slytherins, reduced to the prison of mudbloods, to the defeated.

From who she'd been able to find by whispering to the other in the room, and what she'd seen at the battle, Harry, Fred, Luna, and who knows how many others of those closest to her, were dead. The only one she could be sure was alive, was Ginny, proved only by the pulse she felt through her hand. She hadn't seen Ron since they were thrown in here, she hadn't even spoken a word. Ginny tried, at first, asking Hermione if she had a plan, but she stopped after a few tries. Hermione had no new plans left.

She had figured it out just as Harry told them, her and Ron, what he had to do. That he was a horcrux, and that for them to succeed, he needed to die.

She had thrown her arms around him and sobbed, because she knew there wasn't any way around it. She knew he was the sacrifice that would end the war. When they dragged his body back to the courtyard, limp in Hagrid's arms, her body had wracked with sobs, but she had stood tall. She knew this was their only chance. 

When Harry had leapt from Hagrid's arms, caught the wand tossed his way, and hobbled into a corridor, her body didn't know how to react. She felt the world lift off her chest, and she fought. 

She slung curses whose hue was darker than any she'd ever cast at people she knew deserved it. She stabbed her wand through one death eater's eye socket, wiped the blood on her jeans, and moved on to the next opponent. There was no time to label it murder, she needed to live. Harry was alive, and she needed to live too.

She heard Neville's triumphant yell as he sliced Nagini's head clean off, and for the first time in a long time, she felt real, genuine hope. They could win this.They could _win._

Voldemort had retreated behind his many loyal followers, a human shield she was determined to penetrated. She fought her way towards it, screaming as she killed, and killed, and killed. So much death on her hands, so much blood. 

Harry brushed past her on his way to his death. She remembered that. He had knocked her shoulder as he ran, and he hadn't even noticed. hadn't glanced her way.. She didn't know if that made it better or worse, that she got a second goodbye, and he got none.

He cast a curse, and he warred with the dark lord. The war stood still as he was overcome, and the world collapsed as he died. They had figured it out too late, and he was dead. Nagini wasn't the last horcrux after all. They had missed one. _She_ had missed one. She might as well have killed him herself.

His body fell in slow motion, shaking the ground when it hit. The world erupted, and she knelt. She had killed Harry. She would live. 

She replayed it in her mind, yet again. Tom Riddle enquiring about splitting his soul seven times. Harry, unintentional or not, wasn't counted. She had missed a horcrux, and now they would all pay for her mistake.

Slowly, she became aware to the whispers all around her. Girls were trying to find each other, but scared to make too much noise, lest someone in the dark lord's army be reminded of the prisoners they were keeping. 

She heard Pavarti brokenly calling out her sister's name for what could have been the thousandth time, and she found herself wanting to snap that calling for her wouldn't make the girl's sister any less dead. But she couldn't find the energy.

She slowly, gingerly, squeezed Ginny's hand in hers. They must have been in there at least a day, and being stationary so long caused the small movement to send shooting pain down Hermione's arm. She relished the feeling.

Ginny squeezed Hermione's hand a little too hard, and with a crackly voice, whispered

'Hermione, what are we going to do?"

There was too much raw pain in Ginny's voice for Hermione to answer right away. Eventually, after feeling her heart crack into even smaller pieces, she found one small word at the back of her throat.

'Survive."


	2. Chapter Two

Just as they had on the battlefield, the other girls listened to Hermione now.

It had taken her upwards of an hour to sit up and stretch her muscles, moving each body part slowly and gingerly, trying to force some feeling back into them. It didn't work very well, but at least she could speak.

When she had finally whispered to the other girls to listen, the dungeon had fallen silent. Save but for the girl's ragged breaths, there were no sounds.

"I don't know what they're going to do to us, but I can assume it won't be good."

One girl Hermione didn't recognize, some third year, who up until this point had been looking at Hermione with bright eyes, looked as if she'd been slapped.

"You mean...you don't have a plan? You're not going to get us out of here?"

If there was anything left of Hermione's heart, it fractured. She wished all these girls, who were looking to her for hope, and for help, would look somewhere else. She wasn't a hero, she was just...just a girl.

"I...We lost the war. For now, I think our best shot is to go along with whatever they want from us."

Pavarti's silent tears were gaining volume.

"But, what...what if they kill us?"

 _Would that be so bad?_ She thought. This world wasn't theirs any more, would it be such a shame to leave it?

She saw Harry's eyes in her mind, his kind smile, the way he adjusted his glasses on his nose...The way he sacrificed himself without thought, determined to save everyone. A hero. She saw him sitting next to her, encouraging her, telling her to be brave. She tried to take his hand, but it slipped right through.

"Look...I- I don't know. I don't know if they'll kill us. But in muggle wars, when wars ended like this, a lot of dictators kept the prisoners of war on as...as servants. It's possible Vol-The dark lord will do the same."

The silence had been broken now, and the whispers were gaining volume. Cursing the world, exclaiming love, prayers to gods that didn't exist. Or if they did, they certainly weren't here now.

The girl to the left of Hermione had a broken leg, the bone sticking in completely the wrong direction. She longed to whip out her wand and heal it, at least a small episkey until they could get the girl to Madame Pomfrey.

But Madame Pomfrey was dead, she had no wand.

"Hermione...this can't be the end. Can it?"

Ginny had never sounded so unsure. Hermione shuffled over to wrap her arm protectively around the girl's shoulder, and steal a moment to weep for herself. 

To weep for Harry, for all those she had lost, to weep for herself.

How had she missed the last horcrux? How had she been so st _upid?_

The world was swirling around her, blurry and unfocused. It was all her fault, _all her fault._ If they'd just found the last one...

The last one.

The last horcrux.

It was still out there.

In a sudden moment of clarity, the dungeon came back into focus. The last one. She was the only one who knew about it, except Ron, but she had no proof he was even alive.

Her heart trembled at that thought, and she pushed it to the back of her mind. She had no time for this right now, she had to think.

If she played her cards right, did as she was told, and survived, maybe she could escape. Maybe she could finish what Harry, Ron, and her had started. She could kill Voldemort.

Ginny looked at her inquisitively as Hermione sat up straight, and cleared her throat.

"I...I can't promise you all anything. Harry was the chosen one, and he's...he's dead. I may have an idea, but it's risky, and a longshot, and It's going to be a big ask. I need you all to trust me."

The girls around her began to straighten, to raise their heads and meet Hermione's eyes. No one said anything, and she took that as permission to continue.

"I can't tell you what I have planned. For now, we are all going to do as we're told. We'll clean what we're told to clean, and do...whatever it is they want us to do. They may kill some of us, or all of us, but if we can try and hold on, I will do my best to get us out."

A first year girl was looking at her with admiration, and Hermione wanted to tell her not to. Look somewhere else, anywhere else, just let Hermione wither away in peace. But no, she would see this through. For Harry, for her, for everyone.

"Just...just do as you're told, ok? Be docile, be obedient, and wait."

There was steel in the girls eyes that hadn't been there a minute ago. terror, sure, but also the choice to fight. Fight by not fighting, but fight all the same.

Ginny squeezed her hand in approval, even as her eyes shone with tears.

She was about to speak again, to explain that if possible, they should try and smuggle a wand or weapon if they could, when she was interrupted by the gruff sound of an old wizard.

"Ok, Mudbloods, let's get this over with. One at a time, you're coming with me."


End file.
